I feel good today... but, alas, the day has only just begun. hahaha... no, really, I am committed to making today a fantastic day. It's beautiful outside, my family is healthy and my wife is an adorable woman. I have great things to be thankful for. :D
man... you should see... or better yet "test the heft" of my lunch bag... it's one of those "little lunch cooler bags"... and lemmi tell ya... I packed that bad boy until the zipper was screaming. :D Fuck lunch... I'm grazing for the entire day!
Dear Trail Mix:
Please be gentle on my digestive system.
Your's truly
Mr. Ontheedge.
You know... I quite like those little Kellogg's "fruit snacks". I bet they're made with "the essence of real fruit flavour" and horse.
And another thing... this song continues to be a seriously great song... hard hard hard core.
wearing
~ blue ftls
~ dk green dress pants
~ ridiculous button up shirt... it has this pattern that makes me think of that advert for "garden state"...
~ tommy sweater... it's cool out there this morning. :D :D
planning
~ ok... continue arguing with Frontpage
~ a bunch of HR stuff for The Man
~ client meeting this afternoon
~ Dinner out with extended family for MILs birthday...
~ Amazing Race and Big Brother ... :)
wishing
~ that I don't cave...
~ to send some really seriously big healthy vibes out to
nutmeg... you are fabulous Meg.~ that
amyaustin... would do a traffic report with erasers plugging her nose. Bet that would sound groovy. :D~ I had the four year post secondary course required to properly adjust this expensive punk ass ergonomic chair.
~ to ask... do you know
cottontimer? She and her family are displace to Vietnam visa ve her husbands work... and she presents a very interesting journal view on her world. Yeah... so... look...
Read this ok?
I had thought, after listening to the news this morning and on the heels of all that has made the news lately, that I would purge with a good rant about the exceptionally futile engagements that seem to have no end in sight over in Iraq... but I am distracted from that.
There is always some space in the back of my mind to raging at the world about the terror of genocide and how totally fucked some cultures are that they can see this as a justifiable means to an end... but I am distracted from that.
Health care, the spector of more Bush years ahead, the terrible losses and fear in the path of hurricanes, vie for a voice... but I am distracted from that.
~ Religious nut bars... turn themselves into walking bombs and in the blink of an eye, end the universe for bus loads of people.
~ Disturbed mental processes lead to people hiding behind nationalist pride to engage in terrifying acts of cruelty to innocents in oppressed countries and over the course of minutes, hours and days... they kill and are killed themselves.
~ A coalition of misguided do-gooders engage a people on the far side of the globe and wage endless war.
~ Hitler decided he had the "plan" ... people were rounded up and shot....train load after train load were herded together and burned alive.
Roll all the dead from this stuff together into a single balance sheet... and (thanks, in equal parts to good ol'german efficiency and the creativity of profit hungry corporations) you maybe hit somewhere close to eight million human beings.
And ... I'm here to tell you that they went easy.
Even burning alive ... can be considered a "quick way to go."
What if, instead of what we are seeing on the news... those Chechnian terrorists had spent a few months slowly slicing the life away from those children?
Why make car bombs in Iraq... when they could round up a hundred people and give everyone a belly wound... so they could linger a while before dying?
Instead of bombing a town or a settlement... what if you collected up every last person in that town and stapled their heads to the side of a stadium and let them all die of exposure...
Ok... now, lets take every one of those situations and find the ABSOLUTE solution to the problems... packaged up those answers... and then let the United Nations or someone else hold those solutions on the end of a long stick and we arranged to dangle it above all those dying people... but never let it quite get within hands reach.
We get righteously indignant at the suffering of the Iraqi people under Sadams rule... or the plight of the Afghanies (boy do I want to say "Afgans") under Taliban rule... or any of the other seething masses that make it to our 24 hour news services... that move our governments to commit trillions (TRILLIONS) of dollars and, in fact, the very lives of our sons and daughters to those causes.
But what if we were talking about really big numbers... what if twelve million children were being slaughtered... what if thirty million people were consigned to death... and not a quick bullet in the head but rather a terrifying ordeal of suffering painfully AND they all have to look at their salvation dangle ... just out of reach?
THIRTY MILLION PEOPLE... TWELVE MILLION LITTLE CHILDREN...
Well heck... that would make the evening news, wouldn't it... I mean... CNN would have embedded reporters loading us up with information on this story seven fucking twenty four ... right?
Yeah... NO they wouldn't.
Welcome to Africa. Birthplace of civilization, cradle of humanity... source of practically endless resources... and Africa is dying.
And we hold that stick with the medication tied to the end of it... just out of reach.
Thirty Million People have AIDS in Africa... Twelve Million of them are young children.
I promise... they don't wear loin cloths, walk with spears in their hands and with flies in their eyes.
But they will die... soon... when they have suffered a little longer.
Oh look... big news in Canada... First Ministers Conference in Ottawa arguing endlessly about building a national pharmacare service.
//
I hope your day goes well...
and that you find a moment to be thankful for what we have.